The National Geographic Society’s mission is quite simply “to inspire people to care about the planet.” But they could add so much more to that statement: Inspire people to care about the planet through technologically advanced methods of exploration, discovery and communication. To ignite a passion for education, scholarship, and advocacy of the natural world. To be a leader in photography, communication and media...
National Geographic Society has a TV Channel/shows, films, books, maps, apps, and four publications of note: National Geographic Magazine has three sister publications, National Geographic Kids Magazine, National Geographic Little Kids Magazine, and National Geographic Traveler Magazine. For the sake of the tracking project I focused mainly on the original publication, but at times there were cross-overs with the sister publications, and some of media outlets, and even the Society at large.
I set out to track National Geographic Magazine in September, mainly because I have been an avid reader of the publication my entire life, and it has inspired me to learn and love history, geography, and the beauty of our planet. That may sound lofty, but it's quite true, and I believe others have this experience with the publication as well. Aside from admiring it from a personal level, it deserves accoloates for being a leader in the magazine world, most notably for their use of photography and technology. This year they won the National Magazine Award for “Magazine of the Year,” earned by achieving excellence in both print and digital platforms. They also placed amongst the award finalists in the areas of Photography, News and Documentary Photography, Feature Photography, and Single Topic Issue.
Through my tracking this semester I’ve found that award to be well deserved. National Geographic Magazine (NGM) is fully integrated as a publication across digital and print platforms such as the internet, mobile and their paper magazine. Beyond that though, and more difficult to express in words, NGM has also managed to integrate and humanize the digital experience. Their goal is to bring the natural world to people, and they have masterfully found a way to make people care about the physical, natural world through the often shielded and unnatural digital form.
This is undoubtedly a result of their outstanding photographic journalism. While the images below are digital images, they invoke such awe, and a desire to duplicate the experience in person.
Some of the major updates at NGM these past few months have centered around the NGM apps for iPad. They’ve enhanced their map and children apps, and created a completely new [and free] app in celebration of the population reaching seven billion. On the business side, we’ve seen a major event occur when they partnered with a children’s media company, ACK-Media, in India [see partnership]. I’ll address this more in my post tomorrow. As part of their marketing and visibility campaign, they’ve announced their annual Photo Contest, where readers can submit photos for review by professionals and for fans to vote. This no doubt draws traffic to the site and magazine and gains them additional exposure. Competitvely, NGM seems to maintain their edge over similar publications, notable Smithsonian Magazine and Discover Magazine. As a reader and fan of both NGM and Smithsonain, I can attest that the content of NGM is more focused, in-depth and accompanied by helpful charts, maps and photos. Smithsonian Magazine has a website, but it does not integrate the material in the same way the NGM website does. It does not seem as stream-live and graphically stunning or appealing. The content is still amazing, but visually does not compare.
>>>I will post about Trends and Recommendations tomorrow.
